ITU to raise $175 M, names 2 new principals

LOS ANGELES: ITU Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm specializing in communication and semiconductor companies, said that it will begin raising a $175 million third fund. The firm also said that it has promoted two associates, Ramneek Gupta and Neel Master, to principal.

Ramneek Gupta joined ITU in 2002 and has provided strategic and technical guidance to ITU's portfolio companies. His comprehensive engineering and product development experience came from a range of companies, including PMC-Sierra and TiVo Inc. At ITU, Gupta leverages his strong technical and operational background in assisting investment decisions. Gupta holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay and an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford. He is also an advisor to the National Science Foundation's PFI program.

Neel Master was also named today as one of ITU's principals, with his primary focus upon software services and infrastructure. Prior to joining ITU, Master was a principal at TL Ventures, a venture capital firm based in Pennsylvania. Additionally, Master worked as a research scientist at Microsoft and the Artificial Intelligence Labs and Lab for Computer Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Master has held various engineering positions at start-up software companies, including Permabit, Xavient, and Enterprise Integration Technologies, and provides a unique operations perspective to the ITU investment team. Master has completed graduate work at MIT in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences and holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

"We are pleased to have Ramneek and Neel on board as principals at our firm. The promotions reflect a natural progression that demonstrates their considerable contributions," said Chad Brownstein, managing partner at ITU Ventures.